George Osborne: There is this myth on the Opposition Benches that we inherited a golden economic legacy. It is not a myth believed in by the International Monetary Fund, the OECD or the CBI, nor is it a view shared by Tony Blair or the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), both of whom have identified—since the general election, of course—the fact that Labour was running into spending problems in 2007 and that the structural deficit was starting to build before the global economic crisis that the hon. Lady mentioned took place.

Edward Balls: I am very much looking forward to our debate on the economy tomorrow, on the anniversary of the Government’s first Budget. I do hope that the Chancellor is looking forward to the debate too, but today let me ask him about another matter of great importance to our economy, our national debt and our wider national interest. Three months ago the Chancellor told the House that the cost of the intervention in Libya, which the Opposition support, would be
	“in the order of tens of millions of pounds, not hundreds of millions.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 850.]
	That was followed the next day by headlines—which would have been read by the Gaddafi regime—saying that the Chancellor and the Government thought that the campaign would be over in a month. Does the Chancellor now accept that that was a mistake? Can he tell the House how much has been spent so far? Can he
	also tell the House his latest estimate of what the full cost of the campaign is likely to be and what its impact on the national debt will be?

George Osborne: I see that the shadow Chancellor is following his former master’s habit of straying from the direct area of his brief, but there we go. Let me deal directly with the Libya situation. What I told the House at the time was that the cost estimated at the time by the Ministry of Defence was in the tens of millions of pounds, and the Ministry of Defence is planning to provide an update to the House on the full costs, I think within the next week.

Edward Balls: This is a Treasury matter. It is about Treasury spending from the reserve, and it has a direct bearing on the national debt as well as on our national interests. It seems rather odd that, at the outset of the campaign, the Chancellor was happy to give a detailed answer, yet he now says that he cannot do so. Does he not know, or is he not prepared to do so? Just a few weeks ago, the White House provided the US Congress with a 34-page document giving details of the costs up to 3 June and the likely costs up to September. Will the Chancellor now agree to provide this House with similar information concerning the cost of Britain’s involvement in Libya, and to make a full Treasury statement on this matter to the House?

George Osborne: If the right hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me say that the Ministry of Defence was going to provide an update on the costs within the next week. I know that, when he was in the Treasury, everything was a Treasury matter, but in this Government, we let the Ministry of Defence talk about defence operations, just as we let the Department for Education talk about schools and the Department of Health talk about the NHS. The Ministry of Defence will provide an update on the costs within the next week. The costs come from the special reserve, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, and I can tell him that they are very much lower than those of the ongoing operations in Afghanistan.

Huw Irranca-Davies: A year ago at the Dispatch Box, the Chancellor said that, in his judgment, we would have sustained economic growth, even in the face of the cuts agenda that he is pursuing. Does he now believe that the 1.7% economic growth that the OBR has forecast will be met, or will we be faced with a fourth period of downgrading its growth forecasts?

George Osborne: I think the hon. Gentleman will find that the Government changed a year ago. I would say to the hon. Lady that the economy is now growing, and that in the past year, more than 500,000 private sector jobs net have been created, which is something that the Opposition should welcome. Exports are up 13%, investment is up 5.8% and manufacturing is up 4.2%—[ Interruption. ] Well, we remember when that lot were in a couple of years ago and the economy was tanking. Now it is growing and, as the public finance figures show today, we are getting the budget deficit down, dealing with our borrowing problem and restoring stability to the British economy. That is why the plans that we have put in place have been welcomed by so many independent organisations.

David Gauke: I should be delighted to accept the right hon. Gentleman’s invitation. However, he will be aware that VAT is not chargeable on food, and that we have not raised fuel duty as the last Government did. You do not have to be a Mastermind to know that.

Angela Eagle: Can the Minister tell the House how many of the 34 countries in the OECD have comparable inflation rates higher than the present rate in the United Kingdom?

David Gauke: The fact that global commodity prices are rising and the fact that the UK experienced a significant devaluation under the last Government mean that we face an issue with inflation, but it is the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England that has responsibility for that. It is one of the few policies of the last Government that still has any credibility. Is the Labour party distancing itself from that policy as well?

David Gauke: For a moment, I think the hon. Lady got quite close to supporting the policy the shadow Chancellor announced last week, but she did not quite do so. The fact is that the Bank of England says the main causes of inflation are to do with the devaluation and rising global commodity prices. That is the truth; that is the reality—[Interruption.] Well, that is what the Bank of England says, and I suspect it has a bit more expertise than the hon. Lady.

John Stevenson: I thank the Minister for that answer. Does he agree that one of the main reasons why we are experiencing financial difficulties and the large budget deficit is the simple fact that for a number of years prior to the recession the last Labour Government were borrowing money while other, prudent economies were repaying debt, and that has exacerbated our problems now?

Andrew Selous: Can the Chief Secretary reassure the House that he will never behave as irresponsibly as The Daily Telegraph has revealed the last Government did? When faced with a massive structural deficit before the recession, they increased spending by £90 billion between 2007 and 2010, even though the Treasury told them to increase spending only in line with inflation.

Mark Hoban: We must ensure that banks signal to businesses that they are open for business and that they have the capacity to lend to businesses. That is why we work with the banks to deliver Project Merlin, but, as I have said, there is more work for the banks to do to ensure they are lending to small businesses, and we will continue to hold them to account on that.

Laura Sandys: Did Project Merlin also cover transparency in respect of the covenants banks require small businesses to put forward, and has that increased over the last three or four years? I ask that because this seems to be one of the big barriers to small businesses taking out loans.

Peter Bone: Can the Minister say whether the losses on banks that accumulated because of their bad judgment are being allowed to be
	set against future profits? In other words, are they avoiding future tax on future profits?

Justine Greening: As my hon. Friend knows, one of the key aspects of the Budget this year was to launch “The Plan for Growth”. A key part of that was to provide for more apprenticeships and more work experience so that we can make sure that people in this country have the right skills that companies in this country need.

Stephen Hammond: Does the Chief Secretary agree that one of the assessments that we can make on growth is that the encouraging job
	creation in the private sector will see a reversal of the decline in the productivity experienced when the Labour party was in power, and is likely to see growth forecasts continue to rise?

Mark Durkan: Will the Minister assure us that, in the context of his current work on regulation, the anomalous position of credit unions in Northern Ireland, which have much bigger memberships and funds that those in the rest of the UK but cannot offer the same range of services, will be addressed, along with industrial and provident societies in Northern Ireland, which are also in something of a regulatory black hole?

David Gauke: May I also point out that our tax policies include taking hundreds of thousands of people out of income tax all together? On the particular subject that the hon. Lady raises, of those taken out of income tax following the announcement in the Budget earlier this year, 56% will be women.

Stephen Metcalfe: I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware that if every small and medium-sized enterprise in the UK employed one additional person, we would have an employment surplus. What plans does he have to directly incentivise SMEs to take on additional staff?

Kenneth Clarke: With permission, Mr Speaker, and further to the written ministerial statement I laid in the House earlier today, I would like to make a statement.
	Last autumn, the Government launched two consultations on far-reaching plans to reform punishment, rehabilitation and sentencing of offenders, and on legal aid in England and Wales. Today I have laid before Parliament the Government’s responses to those consultations. I will also introduce the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill to give effect to the measures we are taking forward that require primary legislation.
	Protecting the public from crime and punishing lawbreakers are the most fundamental responsibilities of the state towards its citizens. The sad truth is that after 13 years of Government, over 20 criminal justice Bills, more than 3,000 new criminal offences and an explosion in the prison population, Labour left the system in crisis. Most of our prisoners spend their time behind bars idling in their cells, with ready access to drugs. A bigger scandal still is our reoffending rates, which are straightforwardly dreadful. Within a year of leaving jail, half of offenders will have been reconvicted of further offences. The same people cycle round the system endlessly, committing more crimes against more victims. The best way to reduce crime is to reduce reoffending, and that remains the central feature of our programme of radical reforms.
	Prisons must be places of both punishment and reform. Today I can confirm that we plan to deliver a full working week across the prison estate. We will legislate to extend powers to use money earned by prisoners to support victims. We have never proposed that community sentences should replace prison sentences, but we will introduce tougher, properly enforced community punishments whereby offenders work longer hours, unpaid, at least four days a week.
	Drug abuse lies behind much, if not most, criminality in this country. It is not acceptable that drugs are too readily available in prison. We are taking forward plans to reduce addiction across the prison estate by improving security and introducing drug-free wings in jails. We must tackle other root causes of criminality, particularly alcohol addiction, mental illness and a lack of skills, but we will ensure that we put taxpayers’ money only into rehabilitation programmes that actually work.
	Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low. That is why we want to take forward plans for a new offence, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months, for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. We will also consult on proposals to criminalise squatting, and we will bring forward legislation to clarify the law on self-defence. In addition, I can confirm our intention to improve the use of remand and reduce the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails.
	Discounts for early guilty pleas have been part of the criminal justice system for decades, for good reason, and we consulted on changes to that system. Personally, I was particularly impressed by the representations of the senior judiciary and other criminal justice experts
	who said that increasing the maximum discount on offer for a guilty plea at the earliest possible stage might result in the sentence served being too short in some serious cases. I was hoping to address that problem, and I considered doing so by introducing a greater degree of judicial discretion, but we could not make that work. We have therefore decided to retain the present system.
	The consultation also produced strong opposition to the indeterminate sentencing framework. It was introduced by the last Government and sold as a way of protecting the public from a small number of the most dangerous offenders, but it has never worked as Parliament intended. It has created a flawed system in which thousands of offenders have already served their normal sentence or tariff, but no one can predict when or if they might ever be released. That is why, as the Prime Minister confirmed this morning, we are reviewing so-called indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, with a view to replacing them with a more sensible, tough system of long, determinate sentences. That will see judges handing down life sentences in a greater number of very serious cases, including mandatory life sentences for the most serious repeat offenders. Serious sexual and violent offenders will spend at least two thirds of their sentence in prison, rather than being released halfway through. We intend to return to the best aspects of the system before IPPs were introduced in 2005 by new Labour.
	I turn to legal aid reform. We have much the most expensive system in the world, except for Northern Ireland, costing £39 per head of population. That compares with, for example, £8 per head in New Zealand, a country with a broadly similar legal system. The last Government consulted on the subject more than 30 times since 2006, and still left us with the mess that we now have to tackle. In some cases the system encourages people to bring issues before the courts when other solutions might be better. In others it enables people to pursue litigation that they would not contemplate were they paying for it out of their own pocket.
	Following careful consideration of more than 5,000 responses, I am bringing forward proposals that I believe will ensure access to public funding in the cases that most require it, encourage early resolution of disputes instead of unnecessary conflict and ensure much better value for money for the taxpayer.
	I can announce that we will retain legal aid in cases where people’s life or liberty is at stake, where they are at risk of serious physical harm or immediate loss of their home, or where their children may be taken into care. In response to consultation, that will include strengthened provision for victims of domestic violence and for children at risk of abuse or abduction, and the retention of legal aid for special educational needs cases.
	Legal aid will no longer be routinely available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits. It will also no longer be available for squatters resisting eviction.
	We have also decided not to abolish, as we originally proposed, the current capital disregards for pensioners and for equity in the main home in assessing an applicant’s eligibility for legal aid. We will not now introduce a £100 contribution from capital for those assessed as having £1,000 or more disposable capital.
	All that amounts to a balanced and sensible package of reforms of the kind that the Government were determined to achieve when we published our proposals and started to consult on them. Our plans mean a return to common sense in the justice system. On legal aid, the overall effect will be to achieve significant savings while protecting fundamental rights of access to justice. On sentencing, we will deliver punishment, protection and a renewed focus on breaking the cycle of crime and reoffending. I look forward to debating the proposals on Second Reading and during the Bill’s subsequent stages.

Sadiq Khan: I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement.
	Our justice policy should be about protecting the public, punishing and reforming offenders, being on the side of the victim and bringing crime down. That underpinned our record in government, which led to a 43% fall in crime, reductions in reoffending and serious improvements in youth offending rates. However, the Government demonstrate that that is not what matters in their approach to crime and justice. Instead, it is about cutting cost, despite the impact it could have on communities across the country.
	The Government have seen sense and taken heed of opposition to cost-driven proposals to reduce sentences by 50% on early guilty pleas. A coalition of victims, the judiciary, justice groups, the Sentencing Council and victims groups rightly questioned the motivation and effectiveness of that policy. Let us be clear: the policy had been agreed by the Cabinet. I asked the Justice Secretary during the Opposition day debate on sentencing whether the Prime Minister agreed with him. His response was:
	“This was an entirely collectively agreed policy”.—[Official Report, 23 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 672.]
	It is therefore no good No. 10’s distancing itself from it. In oral questions last month, the Justice Secretary said that the policy would survive the consultation. Of course, some Government Members voted against our motion—although some had the sense not to—which opposed the proposal on 23 May.
	Will the Justice Secretary outline why the Prime Minister ditched the proposal when the Government were so wedded to it only a matter of weeks ago? When was the decision made to change the Bill’s title from the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill, as it was called up until late last week, to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and—I like this—Punishment of Offenders Bill? What did he hope to achieve by tinkering with the title?
	We know from the impact assessment that was provided with the Green Paper that removing the option of remanding offenders in custody for certain cases could save £50 million and 1,300 prison places. I note that that proposal remains. Will the Justice Secretary outline the view of the Magistrates’ Association on the proposal and say whether he believes that the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Police Officers support the policy?
	In the past 13 months, we have seen broken promises on minimum and maximum sentencing, prison building and knife crime. Today the Justice Secretary proposes a new offence of a mandatory custodial sentence for knife possession in aggravated circumstances, with a
	minimum sentence of six months. Even that proposal is less than that promised to the electorate in the Conservative manifesto, which stated that
	“we will make it clear that anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence”.
	That is still a broken promise, and tinkering with the Bill’s title will not change that.
	On indeterminate sentences for public protection, I have consistently questioned the Justice Secretary on how he will ensure the safety of our communities when considering which offenders should be released and when. Again, the impact assessment helpfully tells us that financial savings will be “sizeable”. From that, it is obvious that the focus is saving money, not what is in the public’s best interests. Today we find that the Justice Secretary is to undertake an “urgent review” of IPPs with a view to replacing them. Will he explain to the House why he needs another review when he has had 13 months, a Green Paper and a consultation that he has consistently described as an opportunity to review IPPs?
	How does the Justice Secretary reconcile losing thousands of front-line, experienced prison and probation staff with the desire to increase the numbers of offenders diverted into specialist drug, alcohol and mental health facilities, and how does he reconcile that with more prisoners working, because they will clearly need more supervision?
	The legal aid proposals have been roundly criticised across the board as devastating social welfare law—[ Interruption. ] Has the Justice Secretary—[ Interruption. ]

Sadiq Khan: I am grateful, Mr Speaker.
	As I was saying a moment ago, the proposals on legal aid have been roundly criticised across the board as devastating social welfare law. Has the Justice Secretary seriously considered the alternative funding options proposed by, for example, Justice for All? Does he accept that his changes will have a huge impact on the viability of many law centres, citizens advice bureaux and high street practices up and down the country that do an enormous amount to provide access to justice for some of our most deprived citizens? The Prime Minister claims that the whole point of a Green Paper is to listen and to be ready to change one’s mind, so why have the Government made no substantive changes to their proposals on social welfare legal aid?
	This morning the Prime Minister said that savings that would have been made would have been made by the 50% sentence proposals will be found elsewhere in the Ministry of Justice budget. Can the Justice Secretary explain exactly where those savings will be made and when?
	We are seeing cuts to the police and cuts to prison staff and probation trusts, but where is the strategy to cut crime? The Government’s policies on crime and
	justice are a shambles. We have always known that we cannot trust the Tories on the NHS, but now it seems that we cannot trust the Tories on law and order either.

Kenneth Clarke: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Talking tough is easy and most politicians do it; delivering tough is rather difficult, as the Labour party discovered only too often. I will not use the quotes I have used before—the right hon. Gentleman knows them perfectly well. I agree that punishment is of course the right punishment for serious and violent offenders, who will keep being sent there for long sentences whenever that punishment is justified, so that they can make reparation. However, we also tackle crime by trying to reform them, getting more of them to go straight, reducing reoffending and finding other ways of stopping the accumulation of more victims and more crimes committed by people coming through the system. I think that that is accepted by my colleagues. We are giving up the remorseless and hugely expensive increases in the prison population, and looking for a more intelligent way of protecting the public, which is our principal priority.

Kenneth Clarke: I could answer each of those three things. Most of the cuts being made to citizens advice bureaux and so on are being made by local government; we are not the principal—[ Interruption. ] The Ministry of Justice is not the principal contributor to citizens advice bureaux. However, as I have already said, the Government as a whole will assist those who give quality, worthwhile advice of the kind required by the very many people who do not need legal aid and an adversarial lawyer, which is not the best way of proceeding.
	Court closures we have debated before. We inherited more than 100 underused buildings, which I am afraid we had to tackle and rationalise. Our package of legal aid reforms is tackling a system that has become bloated in recent years—a system that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government kept talking about reforming but never did, because an inability to take decisions about exactly what to do about an out-of-control Government was rather typical under the last Prime Minister. When we have finished what the right hon. Gentleman says are draconian reforms, we will still have by far the most expensive legal aid system in the world after I have made our so-called cuts.

Kenneth Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend. I think that the reason why the last Government introduced IPPs was that they were reducing the time of a sentence automatically served from three quarters to a half. They introduced what sounded like a tough measure, with these new indeterminate sentences. However, it immediately went wrong, and they introduced more legislation after two years to try to reduce the numbers. I regret to say that my first effort was to go in the same direction and reduce them even more. I hope that I have my hon. Friend’s support in saying that the best thing is to get rid of them and return to a sensible system of long, determinate sentencing.

Robert Halfon: Harlow Welfare Rights and Advice and the citizens advice bureau are deeply concerned about the proposed centralised telephone service for all but emergency cases. Can my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that that will not add an unnecessary level of impersonal bureaucracy or prevent advice from reaching vulnerable people? Will he also look into the availability of legal aid in cases of criminal negligence, so that those who have been harmed can have access to justice?

David Ruffley: Longer sentences on their own have clearly failed to cap reoffending. May I therefore urge the Lord Chancellor to press ahead with his radical and right-wing plan to get private companies into prisons to deliver serious rehabilitation which actually works?

Kenneth Clarke: My apologies, Mr Speaker. Probably the problem with my political career is that I have not swivelled enough on occasions.
	As far as mediation is concerned, I believe it is a much better way of resolving all kinds of family and other disputes. The taxpayer will continue to pay for mediation; indeed, the mediators will be trained lawyers. Many people will take part in a much better process of resolving disputes. We are planning to increase the amount spent on mediation by £5 million, as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) tells me, in order to make savings by reducing the amount of unnecessary adversarial litigation that we fund.

Kenneth Clarke: If, as I gather from her question, that case was conducted on a no win, no fee basis—I am not sure about that—as I announced a few weeks ago, such cases will become much cheaper for all parties as a result of the changes that we propose to make in the light of Sir Rupert Jackson’s recommendations. So far as legal aid is concerned, it will still be available in suitable cases concerning human rights. We are not resiling from those areas where the taxpayer needs to finance the small man against the state or the giant administration.

Tom Brake: I welcome many aspects of the Justice Secretary’s announcement, including greater clarity on sentencing, measures to tackle drugs, and improvements in the original legal aid proposals. Can he confirm that the Government remain committed to restorative justice, which victims give a high satisfaction rating, to probation, which is key to the tackling of reoffending, and to the not-for-profit sector? Can he confirm that no further cuts will be made in the legal aid budget or the probation service, and that he will work hard to ensure that the not-for-profit sector receives additional funds to support its work?

Kenneth Clarke: I should think that I have been on probation for the past few decades. Sooner or later I will get the hang of it, but I am working at it. I am not going to launch into a description of reports in the newspapers. I am sure that most of my colleagues envy my ability to get into the headlines, but the truth is rather far away from all that.
	The Prime Minister and I, and the Cabinet, have developed these policies together. We have moved along together—[Laughter.] Yes, we have. We were saying the same things about policy 12 months ago, and we are saying the same things about policy today. What matters is whether the policy actually works. These proposals will be judged on whether in three or four years’ time people can see that we have sorted out the appalling mess in the criminal justice system that we inherited from Labour.

Kenneth Clarke: I have already stated that I am not in a position today to say what we can do to support citizens advice bureaux and similar organisations providing advice in the legal field and other areas such as welfare. The Government are actively considering that, and I hope we will be in a position to make an announcement soon. Part of the problem is relevant to my field, but it extends into other areas such as welfare reform. The Government are conscious of the fact that we must do something to fill some of the unavoidable gaps that have been left at present, mainly by local authorities being forced to cut back on the grants that they can give.

Kenneth Clarke: We are abolishing the Legal Services Commission. One of the most frequent complaints that I get about the system is the sheer bureaucracy, and it has had serious problems in the past. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), tells me that we will save £8 million a year simply by bringing this in-house, as we are doing, but we intend to save quite a lot more on the administration of system than that. It is hopeless, given our prime duty of protecting the public, if we waste money in that area and make it one of the most expensive and fast-growing areas of Government expenditure. We hope to make the system effective and targeted, and for it to do what we should be doing, which is protecting the public from crime and giving access to justice to the vulnerable.

Kate Green: The Secretary of State will be aware that many prisoners have very poor levels of skills and limited work experience. Can he tell us how his plans for prisoner working will improve their employability prospects when they leave prison and what plans he has to link education with prisoner working?

Angela Smith: Will not this U-turn on sentencing mean that some of the long-term savings planned by the Ministry of Justice will no longer be achievable? If that is the case, which other parts of the Justice budget will be cut to compensate?

Kenneth Clarke: I always believe that policy is best judged by results and that half the fuss that surrounds policy making completely fails to predict what will go right and wrong thereafter. I firmly believe—I am quite confident—this package of policies will not have the results that the hon. Gentleman fears. We will both know in four years’ time. The whole purpose of the policies is to achieve the precise opposite of what he holds up as a possible outcome. We had to have radical reform, and it has to be carried forward in a business-like and sensible way to deliver a criminal justice system and access to civil justice of the kind we require.

Kenneth Clarke: No. I shall have to write to my hon. Friend with that information, but I am grateful for his welcome. I do not know whether anyone would oppose this, but it is plainly wrong to make legal aid ordinarily available to people who, by definition, are squatting in properties for which they do not have a legal claim to put forward.

Paul Maynard: The Howard League for Penal Reform’s recent report on short sentences makes it clear that one reason for the devastatingly high level of reoffending after sentences of under six months is a lack of adequate resettlement support for those leaving prison. In retaining shorter sentences, can the Secretary of State reassure me that more will be done to ensure that such prisoners are helped to have a useful and purposeful life after leaving prison?

Jake Berry: My constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that more life sentences will be available to judges when dealing with serious, repeat and violent offenders. Will he tell the House what sort of offences that will cover and, specifically, which repeat offences will eventually carry the life tariff?

Rob Wilson: Many of my constituents want reassurance that the victims of crime will be properly catered for in the new Bill. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the victims commissioner, and can he tell us a little about them?

Hilary Benn: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We have today, for the second week in a row, had a written statement, followed by a prime ministerial press conference, followed by an oral statement. Last week it was on the Health and Social Care Bill, today it was on sentencing and legal aid. It is pretty unusual to have two statements on the same subject on the same day, but do you share my concern that it is discourteous to the House, because it means that the media have a chance to question Ministers—the Prime Minister in the last two cases—on policy before Members of this House get the chance to ask questions? As such, it is not in keeping with the spirit of our rules.

Mr Speaker: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for advance notice of it. I have made clear my view that important announcements of policy should be made first to this House, with the opportunity of questioning Ministers. Although I understand the pressures of the 24/7 news agenda, that remains my firm view. I am therefore uneasy at sequences of events in which a written ministerial statement is followed, or even preceded, by briefing outside the House, with the opportunity to question Ministers in the House by means of an urgent question or following an oral statement coming only some time later.
	The House will recall that, on 20 July last year, it asked the Procedure Committee to consider whether the rules of the House should be changed. The Committee reported in February, and the Government’s reply was published a month ago. There are thus matters awaiting resolution by the House itself. In the meantime, the right hon. Gentleman may be assured that I will remain vigilant in the House’s interests, and will be ready to use my powers to permit questioning or debate if I see fit to do so, and indeed for such period as I see fit. I hope that is helpful.

Simon Burns: Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. It might be helpful to you and the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) if I point out that the precedents for recommittals are not that common, but that if one looks at the previous recommittal, it was done in 2003, by the then Minister of State, one Mr Tony McNulty.

Kevin Brennan: But does the hon. Gentleman think it right on principle that the Government should be able to choose the parts of the Bill in Committee to which Members from any party, Front Benchers or Back Benchers, might want to introduce amendments?

Peter Bone: The hon. Lady asks another important question on which we as parliamentarians have to decide today. As I have said, I am against programme motions that include end dates; I am against programme motions anyway. We could recommit the Bill without including a timetable on when it must leave Committee, but unfortunately we live in this world and that tactic was invented not by my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench, but by the previous Government—[ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), the Opposition Whip, who of course did not actually say anything, makes the point that two wrongs do not make a right, and I agree.
	I know other Members want to speak, but I wish to return to my previous point. If Committee members, at least those on the Government side, vote according to their conscience and are not whipped, we will have a much better Bill. Of course, that is what the Prime said in his famous speech on 26 May 2009, but I encourage
	such behaviour, because, if the Government do not like any amendments that are carried, they can always reverse them when the Bill returns to the House on Report.

David Gauke: We must remember that any debt service will be financed by the Scottish taxpayer—that is the context.
	We should move on. As I said, any loans will be funded from within the Scottish Budget and included in the UK fiscal aggregates. The Bill therefore continues to give Scottish Ministers the power to borrow in the most efficient and sustainable way—from the national loans funds, as recommended by the Calman commission. In addition, should Scottish Ministers choose to do so, the Bill gives them the power to borrow by way of a commercial loan when that represents value for money.
	The Government continue to believe that Scottish Ministers should be able to borrow only by way of a loan, but because overall macro-economic policy will continue to be a reserved matter, and because Scottish borrowing will impact on the UK fiscal position, it is right that this House agrees the limits and conditions of borrowing. I therefore ask Opposition Members to not to press amendment 2 and amendments 26 to 29 to a Division.

Stewart Hosie: I have two answers to that question. The first is that in the 40 years before the crisis, Scotland experienced a surplus on average. The second relates directly to the hon. Gentleman's question. I am fed up with the argument that runs “Scottish banks bad, English banks good.” There seems to be a failure of basic understanding. Northern Rock took £20 billion, as did the Lloyds banking group. No one seems to speak about Northern Rock. Bradford and Bingley required £37 billion. RBS required £45 billion, but a large chunk of that related to the asset protection scheme. It was not a question of Scottish banks’ being bad and needing to be bailed out while all other banks were fine.
	I do not want to drift too far from the new clause, but the Office for Budget Responsibility made it clear in its assessment earlier this year that the net impact of the financial crisis measures would be a surplus of £3.5 billion
	for the taxpayer. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman does not seem to know what the out-turn figure is likely to be.
	Amendment 25 provides for powers to charge a tax charged on the profits of companies—

David Gauke: I know that the hon. Gentleman is keen to move on from the subject of corporation tax, but I seek clarification, I think with good reason. He said that he understood the Azores judgment and what was necessary for compliance with it. He said that if the yield from corporation tax went to the Scottish Government, the block grant would be reduced and everything would be fine. All that is correct. However, if the Scottish Government reduce corporation tax, there will be a cost. He has not made clear how the Scottish Government would deal with that. Would they do so by of spending less or by increasing other taxes?

Stewart Hosie: I do not want to a race to the bottom, but I do believe in tax competition. It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman and his new-found friends do not.
	I must now move on from corporation tax to excise duty. Amendment 37 would ensure that provisions relating to alcohol excise came into force two months after the enactment of the Bill. New clause 19 would amend the Scotland Act 1998 so that alcohol duties became become an exception to the general reservation in that regard.
	All excise duties are currently levied by the UK Government. Alcohol duty is one of the most important excise duties levied in the UK. It is estimated to raise approximately £800 million a year in Scotland, less than 2% of the total tax yield in and on behalf of Scotland. In addition to raising revenues for the Exchequer, one of the key aims of the duty is to reduce excessive consumption of alcohol, which has been proved to lead to a variety of health and social problems. In the current devolution framework, the Scottish budget typically picks up the cost of addressing those problems through police, health and some social welfare costs expenditures. That is done entirely within the Scottish block. Devolving responsibility for excise duty to Scotland would help to ensure that the tax system for alcohol consumption was consistent with the alcohol policy of the Scottish Government and equipped to tackle one of the greatest health and social challenges facing Scotland.

Iain Stewart: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. In calculating these figures, however, we should be careful of looking only at per capita spending. Again, I believe that is too crude. It is about the equality of service provision. In a rural area, the cost per head of providing a school place will inevitably be higher because the fixed costs of a building, for example, are divided by a comparatively smaller number of people.

Ann McKechin: My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who I understand has reached a memorable birthday, spoke to new clauses on the Barnett formula, and the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South and others pertinently said that there is no easy solution.[ Interruption. ]I am pleased to see that my right hon. Friend has returned to his seat. In the financial year 2009-10, however, the average per capita expenditure in Scotland was £9,940, while in London the figure was £10,182. Indeed, it has been stated that the move to a needs-based system in countries such as Australia has resulted in the same amount of debate about what is required.
	Barnett should not be confused with devolution. Devolution allows the Scottish Government to make their own decisions on a range of issues, such as prescription charges, which do not apply in England, but it is separate from Barnett formula issues. The Barnett formula is relatively simple and objective, and as the Calman commission stated, any changes to it would be difficult to determine and “a highly political process”.
	On the new clauses on corporation tax, for the record, the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) spoke about fiscal autonomy for 42 minutes, not 14. However, we are not necessarily any clearer about what impact his proposals would have on the electorate in Scotland. The Calman report specifically rejected the devolution of corporation tax. Paragraph 3.113 of the final report says that
	“we therefore reject the devolution of corporation tax. Nor, especially in view of its volatility…from one year to another, do we see it as a candidate for tax assignment.”
	This matter was raised in an interesting report on Scottish economic growth issued this week by the Centre for Public Policy for Regions, which states:
	“The research findings on the issue of the relationship between fiscal autonomy (or decentralisation) are neither consistent nor robust. Overall, the most important finding is that there is no simple and robust relationship between fiscal decentralisation and economic growth.”
	It also states:
	“The traditional drivers of economic growth tend to concentrate on microeconomic factors (such as innovation, R&D, entrepreneurship, and knowledge-based assets in general) as the key determinants of productivity…To a large extent, the policy levers available in this area have been within the control of the devolved Scottish Government since 2000.”
	Instead of giving us an ill-defined list of extra powers, it would be helpful if SNP Members and their colleagues in the Scottish Government could specify how they wish to use their existing powers to increase Scotland’s economic growth and productivity.

Pete Wishart: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the history lesson. Is this what we are going to get from the Labour party for the next few years? I want to encourage her, because the negativity and can’t-do attitude that has permeated throughout the Labour party is partly responsible for the overwhelming defeat that it suffered at the Scottish elections. Please carry on.

Ian Davidson: Well, that is a hard one, isn’t it! Yes, clearly the way to improve the Scottish economy is to create jobs, and as far as I am aware not even the Conservatives are against that. The arguments to which the hon. Lady refers were so complex that it seemed at some points that even “Hughes” and “Hallett” were disagreeing. [Laughter.]
	We did reach conclusions, however. I think everyone agreed that there were risks in devolving corporation tax, and, as we said,
	“not least in that this could lead to competition which could result in the ‘cannibalisation’ of the UK’s tax base.”
	There was a political difference there, because we went on to say:
	“We recognise that this is not necessarily a concern for those who wish to consider the financial position of Scotland in isolation.”
	I understand why a nationalist would not be concerned about the cannibalisation of UK taxes if there were a minor gain to Scotland, but for those of us who take a wider perspective across the whole of the UK, that is a valid point to take into account.
	It is generally agreed that a reduction in corporation tax in Scotland would result in some drawing in of business from the rest of the UK; I have heard no serious opinion suggesting anything else. If we accept that, we can do no other than recognise that that is not likely to improve relations between the jurisdictions, and as we would hope that in the event of an independent, or further devolved, Scotland there would be an ongoing relationship, beggar-my-neighbour politics on corporation tax is not helpful. The risk of driving that divide between England and Scotland by achieving a marginal gain in corporation tax revenue in the short term is not worth the candle.

Michael Moore: My distinguished colleagues, the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of House, were just indicating—I was going to say “muttering”, but it would be inappropriate to suggest such a thing—in their typically generous fashion that adequate time would be made available should such amendments come forward. I look forward to holding them to that should it be necessary.
	The Bill has been subject to detailed scrutiny in this Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. That scrutiny will, of course, continue, but I am confident that the process in the House has reinforced the central purpose of the Bill: to strengthen the Scottish Parliament so that it serves the Scottish people better. I commend it to the House.

Pete Wishart: I am almost grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he has referred to a measure with which I want to deal. The measure relating to the Supreme Court that was passed today is totally unacceptable to the Scottish Government, and will be unacceptable to the Scottish Parliament as well. When the last Scottish Parliament Bill Committee considered the Government’s proposals, even that Unionist-led Committee did not see fit to pass them. I do not think that a new Scottish Parliament Bill Committee will be any better disposed towards them.
	Had I been given an opportunity to debate the issue, I would have suggested a sunset clause, so that nothing could be done until the expert group in the Scottish Parliament finishes its work under Lord McCluskey. That is the time for us to discuss how to resolve what is a real issue.

Ian Davidson: It is very difficult to summarise several months of work in three minutes. I commend the Scottish Affairs Committee report to the House, and I hope everyone will read it carefully.
	A number of points are worth repeating at the conclusion of our debate. Although I recognise that this is not the end of the story and that discussion will continue, the question of transparency in the figures is vital; that cannot be over-emphasised. If amendments from the Scottish Parliament are to be debated, they must be scrutinised as the proposals from Professor Hughes Hallett and Professor Scott were scrutinised—and, of course, in the end those proposals fell by the wayside because they were found to be wanting.
	We must also recognise that financial pressures on the Scottish Parliament are likely to result in pressures for decisions in areas that did not previously have to be addressed. Hard choices are going to have to be made, so it is therefore again essential that the necessary information and arguments are put forward.
	We must also be clear about what the verdict of the Scottish people was. Some 50% of the people in Scotland did not vote in the election. [Interruption.] Of those who did vote, fewer than half voted for separation.
	[Interruption.] 
	We must remember that more people voted for my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) to be Prime Minister than voted for Alex Salmond to be First Minister.
	Not everything the Scottish National party proposes is accepted, therefore. We must remember that Alex Salmond called clearly for a yes vote in the alternative vote referendum and was roundly defeated. [Interruption.] I notice that efforts are being made to shout me down. That is what has traditionally happened in Scotland when people have challenged the nationalists, and those of us who want to challenge the narrow neo-fascism of the nationalists have got to be prepared to have discussions—

David Amess: It is an absolute delight to have the opportunity tonight to celebrate in the House the work of the hundreds, thousands and millions of volunteers who work throughout the country and whose work we simply could not function without. Volunteers add a commitment and level of care that money could never buy. Everyone should be encouraged to volunteer and people should not be put off by form-filling. I therefore say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I hope the Government will continue to do whatever they can to reduce the red tape around volunteering.
	Having spoken to many charities, I know that they say that Criminal Records Bureau checks help them to protect vulnerable people from individuals who might be at risk, so I no longer think that that is the problem it originally was. However, it is clear that the Government should be encouraged to incentivise volunteering and encourage businesses to recognise the full benefits of volunteering. If businesses helped to promote volunteering and allowed their staff the time to train and undertake volunteering, there would no doubt be a significant rise in the number of volunteers. I know that my hon. Friend and other Members present would be the first to say that when we visit volunteering organisations, they tend to say that they are getting older and to ask where the new volunteers will come from, and that is what I hope we can achieve from this debate.
	I make no criticism whatever of the honours system. I would simply say that all Members of Parliament are continually written to by constituents suggesting that fellow constituents should get an honour, but that is very difficult to achieve. I think of my friend Bruce Forsyth and the fact that it has taken him many years to get a knighthood. I want to mention some of my constituents whom I think should receive honours, such as Ivan Heath, a 95-year-old widower, who is going to leave all his money to charities and is doing so already, and Donald Neil Fraser, a member of Leigh town council, who is over 80 and works as a volunteer morning, noon and night. Con Donovan, the owner of a successful business—a Choice Discount store—does an enormous amount of volunteering, along with his family, and Mark Foster, the famous Olympic swimmer, who comes from Southend, is currently doing an awful lot of volunteering. Joan Alfreda Matthews, a remarkable woman in her 90s, who is the founding member of the Saint Francis hospice, has worked tirelessly as a volunteer for the hospice since 1978 and helps families to come to terms with limiting illnesses. The list is endless.
	Some of us who have been here for a while recognise the frustration of getting honours for individuals. We used to have the opportunity to nominate local heroes through the Experience Corps. I telephoned that organisation to ask why we did not have the opportunity to do so this year. Unfortunately, this is the first year in which we will not have that opportunity because the Experience Corps is not doing it any more, so tonight I am announcing that if no one else is prepared to take on this particular exercise, I am more than happy to do it. I simply appeal to some businesses to help us, so that
	in future, we can honour our local volunteers—the heroes and heroines in our constituencies. I hope we can organise something by the autumn.
	The hon. Members for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) and for Colchester (Bob Russell) and I are officers of the all-party scout group. On 7 June, Mr Speaker hosted an event and the Deputy Speakers assisted with the presentations and the photographic opportunities afterwards, so I realise that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have already heard what I am about to say. Four hundred thousand young people are scouts and they rely on 100,000 volunteers.
	The scouting organisation is absolutely wonderful. Scouts are less likely to drink or smoke. They are more likely to participate in physical activities and they normally make a great success of their lives. Fifty-six per cent. of youth members volunteer for another charity. The number of adult volunteers in scouting is more than the combined work forces of the British Broadcasting Corporation and McDonald’s. If we paid them for their work, it would cost us about £500 million. They do a splendid job.
	At the reception on 7 June, there was a suggestion, which I pass to my hon. Friend the Minister, that the Government consider brokering some form of volunteer incentive card that would entitle its holders to offers donated by businesses. One scout, Stefan Prest, mentioned the success of Orange’s RockCorps as an example of good practice.
	This evening, I attended a charity event at Spencer House, which was a fantastic occasion sponsored by the Chinese company, Huawei, in conjunction with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to organise the relaunch of Childline. They appealed for the ambitious number of 5,000 volunteers. The appeal is backed by the Rothschilds and the Spencer family and I hope we will do whatever we can to assist in gathering the 5,000 volunteers.
	How many events do we go to where the St John Ambulance is in attendance? Many people think the staff are paid. In Essex, Lord Petre is the president of St John Ambulance. Its members do a fantastic job. They administered first aid to 800,000 people last year and they can be the difference between a life lost and a life saved. There are 23,000 adult members and nearly 20,000 young members. The organisation trains 575,000 people a year and it has more than 1,000 ambulances and support vehicles.
	A few years ago, through the Industry and Parliament Trust, I undertook a volunteer attachment with the WRVS. It coincided with the Queen Mother’s centenary. The WRVS does a wonderful job. It runs trolley services at Southend hospital and Southend meals on wheels. It has an emergency service and there are 45,000 volunteers.

David Amess: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is not a case of take, take, take, but of give, give, give, and they really do help business and other activities. I could not agree more. The Southend in harmony event was attended by Jewish people, Muslims and a whole range of other people, and it included an older people’s assembly and an army of volunteers, each and every one of whom I salute.
	I end with these thoughts for my hon. Friend the Minister. I ask the Government to do all they possibly can to help youth organisations such as the scouts to attract more volunteers. The national citizen service, which will begin in just a few weeks, offers an ideal opportunity. If those young people who complete the eight-week national citizen service schemes are then signposted to organisations like the scouts to continue their community involvement and enhance their skills as young leaders, everybody would benefit. That would ensure that the NCS is not simply an eight-week long experience, but an excellent start to a young person’s volunteering journey, which can be enhanced by the range of opportunities that scouting and other youth organisations offer.
	Another way that the Government can support organisations such as the scouts is through their considerable influence with business and employers. More than 80% of employees, when questioned, said that they would like to get involved in a staff volunteer scheme if
	their employer allowed it. The Government should consider whether a person who devotes time to volunteering should be entitled to a small amount of time off to fulfil their obligations, similar to that which is afforded to councillors and magistrates.
	This is the toughest time, certainly in my lifetime, for young people to get a job, despite their wonderful qualifications. Having worked in recruitment for many years before becoming an MP, I know that it is far better for young people to do some volunteering, rather than have a blank space on their CV, as that will go a long way in assisting them to get a permanent job.
	I ask the Government to consider where they stand on the right to take time off to train. Many organisations offer first-class training schemes for volunteers and support them to improve their performance both as volunteers and in their professional careers. In a survey, the Scout Association found that 93% of volunteers believed that the skills, training and experienced gained through scouting had been relevant to their working and personal lives. Businesses should be encouraged to see the benefits they gain from their employees’ volunteering interests and to enable them a reasonable amount of time off to train, safe in the knowledge that the skills they will acquire will benefit the business in the longer term.
	Let the House unite in thanking all our volunteers in our constituencies for the wonderful work they do, and let the Government support us in encouraging a new generation of volunteering.

Nick Hurd: I start by offering my utterly genuine congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) not only on securing the debate but on the passionate way he used it to celebrate people who give time to help others in our communities, because their contribution is absolutely enormous. It is right that we celebrate them and take the opportunity to ask what more we can do to encourage, support and value them.
	My hon. Friend knows that this question is central to our vision of a society in which people feel more power and responsibility not only for their own lives but for the communities they live in and the services they use. It is the big society vision. Of course, we are not inventing something. As his powerful speech and the contributions of other Members made clear, there is already a huge range of amazing voluntary work being undertaken by individuals and groups across the country.
	My hon. Friend referred to several organisations very worthy of mention and celebration in this place, including the scout movement and its work to engage and develop young people in communities, to which my hon. Friend has contributed throughout his chairmanship of the all-party scout group. It is genuinely impressive to see how the movement goes from strength to strength with the essential support of its volunteers.
	We cannot be complacent or take the movement for granted, however. Statistics demonstrate that giving has flatlined and shows some worrying signs of decline. In all our constituencies, we wonder how we will replace the people who have taken a lead in our communities, but the Government are ambitious and we do not accept that decline is inevitable. We want to work with
	the voluntary community sector and, critically, with business, as my hon. Friend mentioned, to connect more people with the opportunity to make a difference.
	I will set out some of our initial plans, which I hope will give my hon. Friend some reassurance that the Government are ambitious and extremely committed to the agenda, and perhaps address some of his specific issues.
	Last month we published a giving White Paper, which sets out our stall. We want to focus on three things: making it easier to give; making it more compelling to give; and giving better support to the charities and voluntary groups that channel our generosity. That involves public investment, so we have said that we will invest more than £40 million in volunteering and social action over the next two years.
	That investment will include a new social action fund to support some of the most creative and effective schemes that are being developed to inspire more giving in priority areas and to inspire groups, including young people. My hon. Friend suggested new incentives to get more people involved, and he may be interested to know that that includes piloting such initiatives as Spice “time credits”, which introduce new incentives for people to give time, including discounts and preferential access to local services. We are piloting, because new incentives may be required just to tip new people over the edge and into giving time.
	We are also announcing challenge prizes to reward the best solutions for breaking down the barriers that get in the way of more giving, and we have announced a local infrastructure fund to help the amazingly valuable and important infrastructure that is out there to support community organisations and volunteering, and to help it become more efficient and more effective. Further details of how organisations can apply to those funds will be announced over the coming months.
	I am delighted to say that the White Paper has received significant support from key figures in the voluntary and community sector. Sir Stuart Etherington, the chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, says:
	“This Paper draws together a wealth of intelligence on what can be done to stimulate greater levels of giving…in the UK.”
	The chief executive of Volunteering England says:
	“The White Paper deserves to be warmly welcomed by the…movement. It promises to make a positive advance in how people volunteer in our society and in how organisations support them.”
	My hon. Friend mentioned the national citizen service, which is a hugely important initiative. It was launched this year, with more than 10,000 places available for 16-year-olds this summer, and is a fantastic opportunity to connect young people with their own power to make a contribution to their communities. Of course my hon. Friend is right: once we have lit the spark in those young people, as we hope to, we must ensure that it is the start of a journey into other opportunities to develop skills and experiences and to make a positive contribution. So, yes, we do want to work with our providers to signpost those opportunities, and I have personally delivered that message to the scouts and to Youth United, because they are entirely complementary to the national citizen service.
	It is not just young people we want to inspire, however. We believe that throughout communities in Britain there are people who would get more involved in changing things in their neighbourhood if they were encouraged and supported to come together. That is especially true of relatively disadvantaged neighbourhoods where there is less obvious so-called social capital, and that is why we are investing in training 5,000 community organisers, who will bring people together in their areas and encourage and support them to make the differences they want to see in their communities. That is why we are also launching a new neighbourhood grants fund, Community First, which will incentivise local people to work together to create the change they want to see.
	As my hon. Friend says, we should look to cut some of the red tape that gets in the way, while making sure that we continue to protect the vulnerable. That is why I asked Lord Hodgson to lead a joint Cabinet Office and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills red tape taskforce. Part of the role of that taskforce was to look at how to remove barriers to those wishing to become more actively involved. He recently published his report “Unshackling Good Neighbours”, and we are reviewing the recommendations that relate to addressing barriers to the giving of time. I heartily recommend the report to my hon. Friend, because I think he will appreciate that it oozes common sense from every page. It is a thoroughly good read. As I said, we are reviewing the recommendations and seeing what we can action as quickly as possible.
	My hon. Friend mentioned CRB checks. He will be aware that we have completed reviews of the criminal records and vetting and barring regimes. As outlined in our programme for government, the aim of the reviews was to scale back these regimes to common-sense levels. It is clear from my conversations with the sector and across communities that there is still frustration about how the CRB process works in relation to the time it takes and the restrictions on portability around the system. The main recommendations of the reviews, which are being taken forward under the Protection of Freedoms Bill currently going through Parliament, is to reduce the coverage of the schemes to individuals who have close and regular contact with vulnerable groups; to place a greater onus on employers and voluntary organisations to decide when to carry out checks and to make it easier to carry them around the system; and to introduce continually updated CRB checks to reduce the need for employees and volunteers to have new checks when they move positions.
	In addition, we announced in the Budget—this is all in the context of trying to make it easier to volunteer—that all drivers who use their vehicle for work or volunteering will now be able to claim 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, an increase of 5p per mile. I am sure that my hon. Friend will know that there was frustration
	across constituencies about the rising cost of giving time in this regard, and we think that this will help. The Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus have been working with the Cabinet Office and key representatives of the voluntary sector to tackle the real and perceived barriers to unemployed people volunteering.
	We are very conscious of the need to lead by example. That is why we are encouraging civil servants to volunteer by turning the civil service into what we call a civic service. They will spend more time out of Departments and in communities working with organisations, and we believe that we will get better civil servants as a result. We are taking a lead in encouraging civil servants to do at least one day of volunteering each year using special leave. We hope that this sets a good example to other employers. One of the reasons I am so optimistic about this agenda is that increasingly businesses are recognising that it is in their commercial interests to encourage their human resources to give time and stretch themselves in different contexts. It is not just about PR value or community value but about developing their most important assets, which are human. We want to lead by example with the civil service, and we are very much encouraging business to follow.
	I recommend to my hon. Friend an excellent speech made by the Prime Minister—of course, every speech that he makes is excellent, but this one is particularly good—called “Every Business Commits”, which speaks very strongly to businesses about what we expect as regards encouraging more social responsibility.
	My final point concerns a matter on which my hon. Friend placed a lot of importance. In addition to implementing these programmes, it is essential that we recognise and reward inspirational examples of good practice in volunteering and social action. To achieve this, the Government have created the big society awards. I do not know if he is aware of that, but I can write to update him on how every single Member of Parliament can nominate individuals and organisations in their constituencies for these awards. We also continue to support and promote the Queen’s award for voluntary service. I was delighted to hear about his own personal initiative on celebrating local heroes, and I wish him every success with that.
	I would again like to thank my hon. Friend for calling this debate this evening. As I highlighted, there is already a lot of excellent voluntary work taking place across the country. In the years to come, we hope to grow volunteering and social action and enable the existing good practice to become the norm. I hope that I have reassured him that the Government are extremely ambitious about and very committed to encouraging more people to get involved in their communities.
	Question put and agreed to.
	House adjourned.